I had my computer custom built for HDV editing, primarily because it was a little cheaper. I'm curious whether the processor the installer put in is standard for HDV editing. I have two "AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core" processors installed. Of course, having the two processors is always good, but I just want to know if this is suitable for the high performance required from HDV editing.

Michael- the x2 is a good processor. which model did the installer put in for you (4400+, 4800+, etc.)

also, im not sure which motherboard you have, but usually on a dual processor board there is the ability to have seperate ram for each processor. If that is true in your case, i would suggest at a minium putting 1gb of ram per processor.

check your system properties, and see if you actually have two processors. I am not aware of any dual socket Athlon boards that exist, you may have dual core confused with dual processor. (the x2 has two cors which act as seperate processors, but are actually one piece) in which case my earlier comment about ram is nil, and I would suggest a pair of 1gb ram sticks (which you would buy as a set) for a total of 2gb.

heres a quote from something i found on the AMD forums:
"There wont be any dual CPU S939 or AM2 mainboards, due to architectural limitations (missing Hypertransport Links of the S939/AM2 platform)"

I do in fact have 2 GB of RAM installed, which is definitely enough. The model number of the processors is 4200+ (so the full name is AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+). Even though this may seem enough, I'm running into some serious performance problems when using Dynamic Link between Premiere Pro 2.0 and After Effects. After Effects is freezing for at least 7 minutes before I can get any compositing done. Any ideas? Thanks again!